Energy Efficient Computing with Sustainable Infrastructure at KIT

<!--HTML-->Modern Data Centers are runnung the latest and often very efficient hardware in terms of power consumption. However, when it comes to cooling or even waste heat recovery most data centers do a bad job by sticking to very old fashioned concepts of using low temperature air cooling, waisting additional power for chillers and a lot of water for evaporative cooling which alltogether is very inefficient and not sustainable at all. At Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) we decided already more than five years ago for a much more sustainable way of cooling our HPC data center: We use a warm water cooling concept where water with about 40°C - 45°C is flowing through cooling plates mounted on the chips inside the servers thus capturing the waste heat directly at the points where it is generated. This temperature level allows for dry cooling without chillers or evaporation almost all around the year. And even more, the waste heat is used to heat office buildings in the cold seasons, thus reducing the heating cost significantly. The talk will demonstrate how we have realized this concept and what benefits it brings to us.